Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Guest Blogger: Drew M.
My post is done to complement turn of the screw. Before starting this book yesterday without going through the beforehand knowledge it was really confusing. Going through the power points explaining what we were looking for and what this was about was really very helpful. One thing that you have to understand about turn of the screw is that it is a ghost story. I am wondering who of the class actually believes in ghosts. I personally have not yet figured out where I stand on this issue. There are times when I feel like there is no way that ghost exist and yet there are always those supernatural occurrences that I seem to feel. I think the way that the governess describes them is similar to the way I have felt them. I always seem to feel as if someone is watching me. I then promptly turn around but I see only a little flash then nothing like whatever it was has just disappeared. This has not happened to me in a while however so I'm beginning to think that it was just my imagination. One other instance of this still semi haunts me today. It happened in Minnesota in sakatah national forest. We were on a biking trip for boy scouts. We were camped near a lake. WE were sitting around the campfire when I noticed a light coming from the lake. It was a cloudless night yet it was a new moon so there was no moon in the sky. The odd thing about this light was that if you looked directly at it you couldn't see it. You could only see it if you looked to the side of it. We put out all the lights and looked at it. At this point I was not freaked out because I thought it was just a light that must be reflecting off of the water. So to assure myself and the other scouts of this we walked down to the lake. We looked on and around the shore line for anything that could have produced this light but we found nothing. Another weird thing about this light was that it was not white but it was more a pearly white with a hint of green mixed in. As I recount the story now I'm beginning to get a lump in my throat. I do not know if anyone had drowned in the lake or had died near there but what I saw that night was no ordinary light. I have never been back to that lake but if I ever do go back on a cloudless and moonless summer night I will be sure to look for it again. The reader's belief in ghosts like mine takes a very important part in this story. This can force you to take the stand that the governess is mental because of some of the lines that she says that make absolutely no sense, or you can take the side that what she says is completely true because of hr very accurate descriptions. I believe that she is telling what she believes to be the truth. I know this is kind of an opinion less way to put it but when a person believes that something imaginary happened it actually can affect someone more than if it was real. Sorry to point at a south park episode but the imagination land episode actually points this out very well that even imaginary things have real power over life. I would just like to know where other people stand on a few questions. First do you believe in supernatural experiences? Second based on your answer to the first is the governess off her rocker or telling the truth? And finally how do you feel about the things in your imagination?
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9 comments:
Drew, I hope that lump in your throat is gone now. I love the South Park reference, too.
When considering whether the governess is insane or not, I go up onto the synthesis level of Bloom's and think "How would our story have been different had Mrs. Grose or the children been the narrator?" From that perspective, we see the governess rambling about ghosts that she sees constantly, yet no one else sees. She thinks that the angelic children are either possessed or conspiring with spirits. From the governess, it sounds credible, but from any other perspective, it is ridiculous. I agree with your statement that she believes that there are ghosts, but I have concluded that there are no real ghosts by thinking from another perspective.
I liked how you tied in a real-life experience to a main aspect of the story. Personally, I don't believe that it's possible to see the spirits of dead people, but the strange story that you've written about seems very interesting. I'd be totally freaked out. I, however, was not there, and I do not know all the details of the cercumstance that took place, so the suspense that I've received from your story could be due to the fact that there's much left to imagine, just as Henry James tries to leave out details to improve the effectiveness of his own story. If you were to retell your story from a perspective of someone else, such as several members of your troupe (I assume that's the word), and we were to find out the "ghost" you've seen was a mere light trick being tried on you, then the reader would have omniscient (or limited omniscient, depending on whether we get everyone's thoughts) knowledge, and the possibility of the existence of a ghost would be ruined for the reader. Not saying it didn't exist, though, buy this is the main reason why it's vital for Henry James to leave details out of his story, I refrain: for suspense, as we've learned in class.
I think that theres no doubt that she's off her rocker, well at least thats how she appears to everyone else. However, what she says and think doesn't seem quite as absurd with us fully inside her point of view. We are still able to tell that she is completely insane, but perhaps not as quickly than if the story was told through the eyes of one of the children or Mrs. Grose. Now of course being inside the governesses mind it makes everyone else look mad because they don't see these ghosts that she clearly sees or thinks she sees. Her insanity is cemented at the very end of her novel with the death of Miles. She thinks that it was the fault of the ghosts, which if ghosts are real make her seem as an innocent bystander, however, seen from anyone else's point of view she stood there and suffocated Miles while screaming about ghosts, clear symptoms of someone being totally and utterly insane.
~Tania
I actually do believe in ghosts mainly because when I was little I seemed to have an imaginary friend who told me everything that happened in other places I didn’t know about. I seem to always know where lost things were and when my mom would tell me how I knew I would say Carlos told me and I would point to where I could see him at the time. Eventually my mom got curious about my knowledge of everything going on in and out of the house my mom began questioning me and then did some research of her own, only to find out that a young boy at around my age was killed in the house we were living in and his named happened to be Carlos. This scared my mom so much we moved. Anyways in a way I do want to believe the governess is actually seeing spirits, mainly because she has no knowledge of the house and what had happened to the other workers there. Another reason why I want to believe it is because she does have very accurate descriptions of the spirits, but I really do think she is crazy. She seems to see one situation and tell it to someone a whole different way making us think that maybe she made it up and just forgot how her “story” went. My imagination isn’t full of weird stuff like ghost and romantic encounters, so I know I’m not crazy.
Getting back to all of the comments I will put forth a further thought that occurred to me that is related to the whole south park thing. In my mind it doesn't really matter if there were ghosts or not. The reason for this is because even if she was crazy which by the end of this I am sure she was you can't really conclude if they existed or not. Since you can conclude neither and that the story doesn't change if she is crazy or not it doesn't matter. I just really wanted to see other people opinions on the subject of Ghosts/ supernatural experiences. I am still on the fence about ghosts. One theory that really seems to explain it is that differing long wave sounds change your brain and allow it to envision things that are not real at all. These instances are very apparent in the London, or Paris, tube system. I can't remember which cities it is. The train's stations are one of the best spots in the world for "ghost sightings." some people attribute this to the train accidents that happened in this are other people say that the long wave sounds that travel through the earth get amplified in the tube and get trapped so they hit people with more effect. I personally am not sure if this theory is true but it's something to look into.
Ghosts: the subject of much debate for, probably, centuries. Personally, I have never had any experiences that could be described as "supernatural," so I do not have anything to describe that I have gone through. I have heard stories, however, from others who have described experiences that, in their minds, could only be explained by the appearance of a ghost. I am not quite sure what to think of that subject. For the most part, I really don't think that ghosts exist. On the other hand, the governess certainly does believe in them. I agree with the earlier comments that argued that she was crazy because she seemed to be the only one seeing the ghosts at the house, but at the same time, what I question is how did she know who Quint and Ms. Jessel were? She had never, to our knowledge, seen them before, so I don't understand how she could have so descriptively told Mrs. Gose about both characters unless she saw ghosts or saw pictures of them without telling us in her manuscript. So, even though most of me thinks that she was crazy and making things up (she did, like Tania said, seem to change her story when telling others), the other part of me wonders if she did actually see these apparations. In my own imagination, I know I do make up things to, basically, scare myself. I think we all have those moments where we make a bigger deal out of a flash out of the corner of our eye or a peculiar sound, creating the illusion that something is there. This could possibly have been what the governess was doing, but because we only see her point of view with a lot of ambiguity, I think only Henry James will know if she saw them or not.
I personally do not believe in the supernatural. In my opinion, anything eerie that occurs can be blamed on my mind. Of course, if substantial evidence is placed in front of me, I would be open to changing my opinion. However, in the case of the governess, it is clear to me that she is imagining the ghosts of Quint and Jessel. When on the lake, the governess point to what she believes is the ghost of Jessel, but Mrs. Grose cannot see her. In addition, she is usually alone when she sees the ghosts. During her first meeting with Quint, right before she sees him, she mentions that she would like to meet someone. Could her mind have granted her request and placed the image? It seems very likely.
While I don't believe in supernatural experiences if I ever see a ghost I'll be as crazy as the next fanatic. I also think that governess in Turn of the Screw was absolutely insane. While I did sympathize her "situation" where she was see angelic children turned into demonic figures. It seems to be like something out of creepy horror flick. However, since the story is shown in almost completely through her point of view you almost are forced to believe her in order to get along with the story. As for my imagination, I'm certain that I am schizophrenic-to-be.
I personally have never had a supernatural encounter. I have heard stories about ghosts existing but since i have never experienced one for myself i don't believe in them. In the beginning of reading Turn of the Screw, i was not sure about my feelings towards the governess and her sanity. She seemed like a very credible source and presented her story in a very believable way. As the story continued however, I began to question whether it was all in her mind. There are numerous occasions where the governess is the only one to see the "ghosts". This leads the reader to doubt their existence. By the end of the novel i came to the conclusion that the governess was crazy. The story seemed believable and real when told from her point of view because it all took place in her mind. When seen by an outsider, it is easy to see how insane she actually is.
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